PS4 Update 2.04 Causing Issues For Some Users

Matt Wingler 34 Comments

It seems Sony has just released firmware update 2.04 for the PlayStation 4. The update clocks in at under 300MB and although my attempt to view the details of the firmware update in the browser got me an ‘access denied’ message on the PlayStation website, it would seem this is another stability update.

Unfortunately, although I was notified of the update when I signed in to my console, I received multiple error messages during the initial download, and then again after it finished but before it actually allowed me to update. Once it finally did finish, my console wouldn’t connect to PSN for several minutes after it rebooted. A quick trip around the internet sees others having the same issue, with many gamers reporting error message SU-30709-0 during the update, which is apparently an error message related to a firmware issue.

To be fair, my console did eventually update and reconnect and seems to be fine now, and no doubt these troubles will be ironed out in the future, but if you haven’t updated yet it might be worth waiting until this is resolved. If you did turn on your PS4 this morning, let us know how the update went for you in the comments.

Quick update: Sony just noted via Twitter that they’re aware of the issues some people are reporting.

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34 Comments

  1. Thankfully seems to have gone OK for me.

  2. It’s embarrassing the amount of times the @AskPlayStation twitter account states something like “we’re aware of some issues having issues….”. Like their awareness is somehow justification for the frequent issues. Luckily, they often just seem to affect a small number of users though.

    • It must be a tricky situation for Sony. Any firmware update has the potential to cause some issues. Downloads could become corrupted, someone could turn off the PS4 while it’s updating, or a flock of angry geese could attack at just the wrong moment. (That last one is, thankfully, very, very uncommon)

      If Sony don’t say anything, because it affects a tiny number of users, they’ll be accused of not being open about problems and trying to ignore them. And the internet will explode with 7 people blowing it up into something bigger than it is.

      And if they do say anything, like “we’ve heard about 7 people having problems, and we’re trying to work out what’s gone wrong and help them and see if it’s anything serious”, it’s embarrassing?

      One thing you can guarantee is that nobody is going to be posting articles anywhere saying “Sony found out the problem only affected 7 people and so wasn’t really an issue at all”.

      • I meant as a whole, what with PSN issues and downtime as well as opposed to this firmware update exclusively. I agree they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place as to whether to bury their heads in the sand or hold their hands up and say it’s a problem, when there is a problem (only identified by a few).

        I can’t begin to comprehend the technicalities they have to consider with these things, and perhaps I’m being unfair since I don’t know what Xbox/Xbox Live is like as a comparison, but all I know is that they often seem to be aware of a problem. I guess the generation we’re in, not every eventuality can be tested until it’s out in the wild, but as I said the frequency of such tweets is very regular.

      • Xboxone has a preview program where users beta test updates and provide feedback before its released to the masses. Sony should do the same thing.

        Re “small amount of users” when you’ve sold 20 million consoles (nearly) you could argue 10% is a small amount of users, however that would be a lot of users still.

      • It’s exactly the same situation with these “PSN issues”. Except in that case you’ve got the added complication of many different ISPs that might be the cause of the issues. (Some of which seem to provide a service that might just be acceptable for checking email once a day)

        The PSN is remarkably stable given the number of users. It’s working fine 99% of the time, with that other 1% being spread throughout the day so any individual user is even less likely to notice problems.

        The store may be somewhat more likely to be inaccessible though. But the PSN itself seems mostly fine. Less than a day over christmas when I couldn’t play anything online? (And that was obviously not Sony’s fault at all)

        I really don’t understand where this “PSN is shit and down all the time” stuff comes from. Really doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Apart from the store which always goes down when there’s any maintenance.

    • They should change it up and tweet a picture of the Little Britain guy doing his “Yeah I know” line.

  3. How many stability updates have we had over the past, lets say 5 years, to include the PS3 years? Is it tangibly more than stable than it was 5 years ago, I don’t think so. Its probably more secure, but more stable it is not!
    Long term, Sony need to address the PSN and address its faults head on, short term they need to drastically improve their communication to its users, the generic “Were aware of problems” is getting increasingly tedious/frustrating.

    • No, but is it more stable now than it would have been without the updates? Yes.
      Might not be more stable than it was, but the stability updates may have prevented loss is stability which might have happened had we not had those updates. Make sense?

      • Yeah, but i’d counter that argument with, “that’s what the maintenance is for”
        Maintenance for maintaining current service levels
        Updates for improving current service levels

  4. Just updated mine and have experienced no problems at all. Which is a shame cos I was hoping to have a whinge at Sony and demand (IN CAPITAL LETTERS) a grossly disproportionate amount of compensation.
    Oh well, there’s always next time.

  5. I’ve not updated yet, but while on the subject of firmware it really is quite irksome that the level of communication regarding future development of the console is still non-existent.

    They’ve had more than a year now to address this as being one of the few shortcomings of the PS4’s build-up and execution, yet there seems to be no desire for improvement whatsoever while their competition storms ahead in this regard.

  6. Presumably part of this update has enabled my ps4 to communicate to the ps store what I’ve been playing as I now have a ‘just for you’ menu which offers recommendations.
    GTA V being listed under ‘because you played minecraft’ leads me to believe that the algorithm isn’t overly sophisticated.

    • I’d guess it uses a basic tag system, and they’re both “open world”. Hopefully it doesn’t do what Amazon does and flood your recommendations with things based on just a single purchase. I buy a plug for my phone off there and suddenly I’m assaulted by a huge collage of plugs and other cables. Amazon, I bought the plug because I broke the last one, not because I want to start collecting them.

      • What’s wrong with collecting plugs?

  7. And as seems to be traditional here lately…

    It might be more stable now, but I still can’t fit a horse in the bloody thing.

    Unless…

    Hmm, I’m off to find a really small horse and an industrial strength food processor. And a funnel.

    • Simply throw a few Tesco burgers in there. That should do the trick.

  8. I had this problem earlier this morning. My internet was working fine, I was able to keep browsing on my PC as usual. The PS4 told me there was a new firmware update, then failed to download it repeatedly, then told me I couldn’t go on the internet without updating it.

    According to the official site at the time, the latest update was still 2.03 and people that contacted Sony’s helpline just got linked to the 2.03 download page. Eventually it worked but still wouldn’t let me go online on the PS4 even though, as always, the internet worked fine on every other device I tried.

    I much prefer Sony to Microsoft and the PS4 to the Xbone, but my experience with PSN so far – in just a month since I’ve got my new console, has been pretty awful. And that’s not even trying to play online, but merely do things that require PSN to work, like browsing the store and trying to watch Amazon Prime videos. This is the one and only area I think the Xbox beats the PS in.

    • Why would the PSN affect watching anything on Amazon Prime (other video services are available and may contain less terrible UIs)?

      Even if the PSN is unavailable, for whatever reason, all those video services work fine. Netflix on the PS3 would always object if you weren’t logged in to the PSN, but you could always hit circle and cancel that until it stopped complaining. You won’t be going anywhere near Sony’s servers to watch videos on 3rd party services.

      Didn’t MS insist on XBL Gold membership for those things in the past? So if there was a problem with XBL, you couldn’t use any of them? Until they realised that was stupid? Unfortunately, Sony thought MS had a good idea doing that sort of shenanigans for online gaming and tied all that to PS+ for the PS4. So on those rare occasions when the PSN goes down, all your games are offline only.

      • I don’t know, I’m just going off the fact Amazon Prime’s video streaming still worked on my PC but not on the PS4, and the reason given was inability to connect. I’m not even using the wireless connection since it seems to be pretty slow (I’d say it was going at around 300kbps when I tend to get around 2MB/s when downloading games on Steam) so I don’t know why it’d be so unreliable.

        To be fair, one of the most annoying experiences I had was actually down to EA, not Sony. That was when I was trying to import my save into Dragon Age Inquisition and it couldn’t connect for several hours.

        And yeah, Microsoft would charge for that stuff – though I used my 360 for online gaming for several years and didn’t really experience any problems – even when playing Final Fantasy XI pretty much around the clock. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very much on board with the PS4 and would consider someone crazy if they chose an Xbox One over it, but this is a real weakness in Sony’s portfolio at the moment.

  9. WOAH! Go to the Library in the horizontal menu thing and you’ll find the DLNA/Media Server icon!

  10. The PSN last night was awfully bad…messages took over 3 minutes to appear after the notification…thought Sony had nailed it recently as it has been better but the PSN service is pretty poor at nights…

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